Peanut Butter Jar Oatmeal

What is the best part about an empty peanut butter jar?

There is not one?

OH BUT LOOK!

Peanut Butter Oatmeal!

1/2 cup quick oats

1 tsp brown sugar

empty pb jar

1+ cup boiling water

I never waste anything ;)

How important is breakfast?

Start your day out right.

Too often I get asked why breakfast is important. I know that some people really just aren’t hungry in the mornings so they feel like they don’t need to eat.

But listen, breakfast really is the most important meal of the day! I’m not talking about donuts or sugar cereals. I’m talking about HEALTHY breakfasts.

1. It stops your body from breaking down muscle for energy. You won’t be lethargic. Eating breakfast will give you the physical strength you need to move around through out the day. Too tired to have sex at night? Try eating breakfast. (…or make your partner eat breakfast. It could be our little science project.)

2. Breakfasts controls your appetite so you don’t crash diet and eat too much at lunch time and through out the rest of the day.

3. You will perform better at work or in college. Concentrations is improved. Same goes for children. They perform better in the classrooms and recreation areas.

4. Studies have proved that those who eat breakfast weigh less than those who do not. See #2.

5. It will lower your cholesterol. We all have seen the oatmeal and Cheerio’s commercials…

6. Skipping breakfast, or any meal, makes it hard for you to actually intake the daily recommend vitamins and minerals.

Don’t tell me you don’t have time to eat breakfast; it is a lazy man’s excuse. It’s not hard to pre-plan. You can make different meals the night before like overnight oats, chia pudding, peanut butter on toast, make granola & yogurt cups, or even pack a protein shake like Shakeology or Herbalife. Grab a banana if all else fails! If you really are short on time, wake up earlier! 10-15 min is all you need. Eggs literally take a minute and a half to cook.

You can scramble two eggs in a coffee mug, nuke for one minute then top with some cheese, peppers, onions, mushrooms or what ever you like. Nuke it again for thirty seconds and voila. Eggs in less than two minutes. Grab an orange and your out the door with a healthy meal.

So, to make today short & sweet, Remember to feed your family and your body breakfast.

Why am I so sore after working out?

Sticking to a workout plan is hard, but we can make it easier with more and more support!

There are so many people out there with good intentions, but fail to follow through for many reasons. We need to realize that we can’t control life sometimes. Stuff happens and we have to work around it. No body is perfect.

I can’t shake this headache – so I’m going to have to start using myfitnesspal, again. I’ve been drinking tons of water! I think I might need to increase my calories even more than I did yesterday! I’m not complaining – 1800 cals is awesome.

Before class today, I packed my Shakeology shake in my camera bag, AND LEFT IT AT HOME! So I had to grab something in town before I went to the grocery store. I can’t go to the store hungry – not just because I’ll drool the whole time or buy unhealthy foods, but because I buy too much of the healthy foods, then they go bad or forgotten about. I grabbed a six piece grilled nuggets and fruit bowl plus tons of water.

I really do have peanut butter everyday…

As for my workout, today is my rest day. I’m resting my sore body, but honestly it feels better to move around.

Why do I get sore after working out?

When you work out, sometimes your muscles use a process called the anaerobic process. It means that your cells gets the energy it needs from glucose instead of the usual aerobic method with oxygen. When glucose is broken down anaerobically, it goes through a process called glycolysis where glucose is broken down in to a substance called pyruvate. When oxygen is low, pyruvate is converted into lactate for a short time. Lactate is sometimes called lactic acid because high levels of lactate increase the acidity of muscle cells. Now it isn’t the lactic acid that causes the soreness after working out vigorously, instead its the process of producing lactate and other byproducts and metabolic reactions that create the burning sensation. So in other words – if you are sore after working out, you know  you are burning fat!

Now, I am so sore! I really worked out really hard the past two days & used muscles I forgot I had. TurboFire is so different than running or doing weights.

I’m not a huge fan of hummus, but I decided to give it another try. Jicama [hick-a-ma] with my roasted red pepper hummus was a great combination. Jicama is naturally sweet, and the hummus had a little spice to it, so the combination of the two was great! My daughter thinks jicama tastes like an apple.

I had planned to make grilled chicken salads for dinner, but my husband told me he was sick of chicken… This happens pretty often. He works construction and usually eats around 4-5000 calories a day! He’s 6’3″…

Anyways, on his way home he begged me to let him pick up bean & cheese quesadilla meals. Marriage is all about comprimising, so compromising we did. We melded our two ideas together!

I turned this – plain beans & rice…

…into this!

Check out my grill marks! How did I do that? To get perfect grill marks, oil up your indoor grill pan, heat to med-high heat, grill thin chicken breasts on one side for 6 minutes, rotate 90-70 degree, cook for another 5-6 minutes, then flip and repeat!

REMEMBER: Follow my instagram for daily photos! @hhmommablog

How To Plan Your Weekly Menu

The Dinner Jar

So, I love the idea of those magnetic weekly menus, where all you do is go through a handful of printed-food-items then clip them by the day you decide to cook it. But, I love my notebook. My dinner jar is like a guessing game.

First, I downloaded a jar-label-print-out. Then I typed up all our favorite dinners on scrapbook paper, then printed them out! I ended up having fifty- or so of  them…

…I just punched them out with a paper punch, some I even cut out with scissors. Then I hot glued a little twine around the jar and declared it my new best friend (when it comes to meal planning).

I just shake-shake-shake and pull out meals one by one. If you aren’t jonesing for what you pulled out, leave it out and pull out a different one! Super easy, huh!

Breakfast, Lunch and Dessert jar anyone??

For more info, check out How I Meal Plan

How to peel a lot of garlic, super fast!

From my last post you learned that I adore garlic, so now I’m going to let you in on a little secret of mine…

I use this trick almost every day!

All you need is a jar or thick container and garlic.

First things first: Smash the whole garlic to break it into individual cloves. Usually I can just use the palm of my hand, but sometimes my garlic can be stubborn and I have to either A) have my husband do it or B) grab a cook book to smash it.

Drop all the unpeeled garlic cloves into your large mason jar, or any sturdy container. I’ve used rubbermaid plastic containers and it worked just fine, but one time I had an epic fail with a thin and flimsy plastic container. I shook that jar for so long I was sore the next day…

This is where is gets fun, turn up the music and get crazy! SHAKE IT! Keep shaking until you see all the garlic is peeled. It takes me about 45 seconds to peel a whole head of garlic.

…and there you have it! Perfectly peeled garlic every time! If you aren’t going to use all the garlic at once, put in in a jar and use through out the week. If you want your garlic to last a few months in the fridge, put the garlic in a jar, cover with white vinegar and keep in the fridge for up to 3 months. (It doesn’t make your garlic taste vinegary.)

Now go shake it! xo!

Coffee Body Scrub

Winter weather dries my skin out quickly; I hate it.
I have to keep up on my skin care so that I prevent ingrown hairs, acne, eczema, or other irritating rashes and skin issues. One of my favorite skin care products is an all natural body scrub! It smells so good you’ll want to eat it.
As a part of my regular skin are regimen, I use it every other day, all over my body, with the exception of my face. I scrub for about five minutes so I know my exfoliation is deep enough to remove the dead skin cells, but not deep enough for damaging effects.
This scrub is just as addicting as coffee in the drink form. Try not to use it every day because your skin needs time to heal in between exfoliations.
Coffee is packed with caffeine which when comes in contact with the skin, it literally melts cellulite. It doesn’t it away, but it breaks up the fat for “repositioning.” By doing so, surrounding cells are flushed and detoxed while blood circulation is intensified. In return, the bumpy appearance of cellulite disappears. Caffeine also constructs blood vessels, so all those little spider veins or lumpy varicose veins can be treated with this scrub. It will diminish them by acting as a vasoconstrictor when used regularly. Whether you drink the stuff or not, wake up to a scoop of coffee – not from a cup, but from the shower!
When buying your coffees, keep in mind that good coffee is for taste, but cheap coffee is for your skin. Don’t buy instant coffee nor do you want decaffinated for your skin. You need the caffeine for its benefits and the gritty grounds to exfoliate.
So that the caffeine is at its peak, make this scrub while your shower is warming up. Keep a container of coffee, sugar, and bottle of olive oil in your bathroom for convenience.
This also makes the perfect neighbor, home-warming, thank-you, or just-because present.
Label the jar, include a craft stick for scooping, & tie a pretty bow around it. It’s like buying them a cup of coffee without the guilt!

Coffee Body Scrub
Makes one cup of scrub

What you need:
1/4 cup ground coffee
1/4 cup granulated white sugar
A splash of olive oil (not your expensive evoo)

Blend the coffee and sugar together, add a splash (about a tablespoon) of olive oil to moisten the coffee-sugar. Add more if needed till you achieve your ideal consistency.
In the shower, wet your body, step out of the water or save Mother Earth & turn the water off. Scrub sections of our body for one minute each for 5 minutes. (Legs a minute each, arms a minute each, tummy/chest/back/ a minute.)

Want a super smooth & long lasting shave? Try this trick:
Lather & shave your legs with you choice of shaving cream or body wash. When done, scrub your legs for a deep exfoliation. Rinse & lather your legs again with shaving cream or body wash. Go over your legs with a second quick shave. Rinse again and pay dry. Apply oils or lotions for moisture and nutrients. Shaving this way adds an extra step, but it’s guaranteed to leave your legs silky smooth for at least 3 days. (Try not to get chill bumps haha)

Septic tank? No problem! The ingredients in the scrub are organic matter so the bacteria in your septic tank will break it down. Even they get a cup of joe, you’re welcome!